"I want you out,"
she told him
the day she found
her credit card
in his wallet,
and her voice
was the slamming
of a cell door.

"It's over,"
she declared to him
the first time he hit her,
and her eyes
were 'Delete' keys.

"Get the hell out,"
the time he crashed her car
into the side of the house
in a drunken fit.

"I hate you,"
the time
he had her cat put to sleep
because it had
urinated on his pillow.

"Stay away from me,"
the time she came home early
to find him with another woman
on her dining room table,

and every time,
her words
were sung by the Fat Lady

and he never
worried his head over it

because cell doors open,
affection can be retrieved,
and the Fat Lady
sang another aria
just about every night.

"Goodbye," she whispered
over a smoking barrel
one uneventful Sunday morning
as he lay sleeping in her bed

and the Fat Lady
never opened her mouth
again.

10/02/2005